Wrapping it Up

It's time to start heading home. My body is telling me I've done enough driving for one trip; I'm ready to sit in one place for a few days. Fortunately, Phoenix is my next stop and I'll be able to stay there for a short while. El Paso, Juarez, and Las Cruces have come and gone without too much excitement. Here's a couple highlights:

Juarez, Mexico is like any other border town I've been in: run down, dirty, and without much to see. But the intercountry bus is called the "Border Jumper" so for that reason alone I had to go for the ride. Once in Mexico I immediately took a wrong turn and got myself lost for a good 30 minutes. After refinding my bearings I finally stumbled back across the border a couple hours later (a quick note about the border: the "mighty" Rio Grande is little more than a stream at this point. Having watched the river grow on my drive through Colorado and New Mexico, it's sad to see it reduced to such a shadow of itself).

Radio in New Mexico and Texas is definitely not what I had anticipated. I was expecting the plethora of country and Mexican stations, but I wasn't ready for the incredible number of religious ones. It even has an influence on non-religious radio stations. On the drive out of Las Cruces today I was listening to a rock song with a chorus of "This ain't a scene, it's a goddamn arms race." But that's not the way it comes out here. Instead it's "This ain't a scene, it's a ---damn arms race." Now I've got no problem with radio stations bleeping out things, but just the word "god"? Why not bleep the whole word at that point? I dunno, it just seems a little weird to me.

Another fun tidbit on the radio is the cattle and raw food report. Directly after the stock report they cut to a second report detailing the prices of everything from steer and heifers to corn and beans. And it all goes by way faster than I can listen to. It's really something else.

On the way back from the White Sands Sand Dunes I made an impromptu detour to the White Sands Missile Range. This turned out to be a great detour. The missile range is one of the most successful in the world and was the site of the first atomic explosion as well as America's first rocket to reach space. Anyway the museum is small but packed full of historical information. They also have a large collection of old and used rockets from previous tests. While walking among the missiles I added a new item to my "things to do before I die" list: see a rocket launch in Cape Canaveral.

And that's pretty much it for now. I'm in Silver City, Utah, getting ready for a long drive up to Phoenix tomorrow.